I ended up getting Battlewake last night $33.00 CAD, I've had fun with it so far. I played through the first part of the campaign and into a bit of the second part of the next characters campaign. As a big fan of Sea Of Thieves and just pirate games in general Assassin's Creed Black Flag (maybe one day Skull & Bones haha) I've been excited to play this as I've been following it a bit leading up to the release yesterday.
So this game is not Sea Of Thieves, you're always on your ship and its ship to ship combat for those who aren't familiar. The controls for maneuvering the ship are actually pretty amazing. You learn pretty quick that the anchors to your left and right side are your best friends as you can hard turn by pulling one at a time. As you're pulling those 'anchor brakes' you're also steering your ship and as you're doing all that you with the Playstation Move controllers you're also pointing and clicking either with the left or right controller to aim where your galley full of cannons will fire. The firing can be a bit awkward at times (theres alot going on) but it works and I can also chalk this up to me still learning. I will say control wise its super accessible to first time players and it won't take long to figure it out. It feels pretty rewarding pulling a hard turn, between two ships, steering through them and sinking them in one fluid motion as seen in Pirates of the Caribbean.
Visually the game does kind of sport a Sea of Thieves visual style, with its characters which is probably the only reason you could compare the two. Sailing one of four pirate ships into battle through one of four levels... a jungle/ swamp level with trees for cover, a frozen level with huge icebergs, a tropical sort of level with little islands and clear blue skies and through a volcano hellscape with debris falling into the water are all pretty amazing in VR with some pretty good visuals. Best of all for those without their VR legs, sailing on the seas in Battlewake shouldn't give you motion sickness, the frame rate is good and the visuals keep up, I did read before hand this was a big focus for the dev team (Survios).
I also got into Warfare mode abit which varied things up from what I played in the campaign, their were treasure ships to hunt down and other ships protecting them. There were boss battles after an onslaught of smaller ships and there were modes within Warfare mode where I was firing my cannons on an enemy stronghold as I fended off other ships. I liked this mode quite a bit, although I think theres room for more creativity with more modes likely in some DLC. Each battle you win can win you tankards of grogs or coins to upgrade your ships health, magic or firepower.
Maybe my fav part of the game is each Captain you play as has their own special ability, keep in mind I've only unlocked two out of four captains but I absolutely love those glorious times when you get to use the special ability. My fav so far has been to unleash the Kraken and watch in VR as the giant octopus pulls ships under the sea with its huge tentacles. Last night I tried this on a boss ship and it was an experience to see that ship halfway out of the water with the stern sticking into the air and the bow submerged as the beast unleashed chaos in full scale VR.
Incase you're wondering their is a multiplayer mode online PvP up to 10 players (no I haven't tried it yet) but this is where upgrading your ship and replay value sets in.
I think there is more potential in this game, I would really like to see more things like Megladons attacking your ship, ghost pirate ships and more interactive levels aside from whats in there already. I hope this game gets the support it deserves as its off to a good start but will likely need more content to keep it going. You won't have a bad time by trying out this game for what it is right now though and theres enough hectic fun in single player mode (Warefare mode) to warrant a purchase but eventually it will need more missions and maps.